Category Archives: Assyrian siege tower

The Return of Assyria, Chapter 16, showed me that my children enjoy these stories or, – shall we call them by their official name? – history lessons after all. We had struggled through chapter 15 and we had some attitude issues to deal with. Besides, I was busy putting together my first picture book for Kindle. Something had to give. I put History on hold for the past two weeks. Or was it three?

With Chapter 16, I decided to try something new: I read the chapter to them at bedtime. In Susan Wise Bauer’s description of this curriculum, she calls it “The book that delayed a thousand bedtimes” or something to that effect. It gave me the idea that, after all, the author went to great lengths to make history appealing to young children by using a story format. Why not use these for bedtime reading? Why not replace Spot, Max and Ruby, Clifford and the Berenstain Bears with the true stories of ancient civilizations?

The Assyrians Are Coming! And yes, Iron Man is leading them in his slippers.

Instead of our books or library books, we read these two stories within this chapter. They loved being in my bed with their clipboards, crayons, maps and coloring pages. They listened intently. My son, the first grader, answered the review questions perfectly. Daddy walked into the bedroom while we were covering the review questions and enjoyed seeing how much our son knew about the Assyrians. Continue reading »